The Knight's Code
by MahinaFable
Summary: Jaune had always wondered why his father had refused to train him in their family's traditional style of swordsmanship. He returns home to confront his father and fully realize his birthright, and in the process, learn what it truly means to be a warrior.


**Author's Note: This is a one-shot, set vaguely sometime after Volume 6, and what I'm assuming will be an Atlas-centric Volume 7. It will almost certainly be rendered completely non-canon in the future. Also, this is my first time writing combat, so hopefully it doesn't come out too poorly. I own diddly-squat. Enjoy!**

**The Knight's Code**

**[/]**

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

Jaune glanced down to meet the silvery gaze of his friend and teammate, Ruby Rose.

"I need to do this, Ruby. Trust me, I'll be stronger for it...for everyone."

The young girl had been the guiding star for the assorted young Huntresses and Huntsmen, members of the eight-person Team RRAYNBOW, that had become embroiled in an eons-old conflict beyond their understanding. That conflict had cost the life of Jaune's partner, mentor, and friend, Pyrrha Nikos, and Ruby knew that the guilt and the grief still ate away at the leader of Team JNPR. When Jaune had approached her to ask for a personal favor, she had to weigh the delay that it would cause, a few days' drive away in a van that Qrow had… "acquired," against the potential catharsis that it could grant to him.

Before all of the insanity, and before he had ever left for Beacon, Jaune had tried to convince his father, a Huntsman of some renown, to teach him the Arc Method of swordsmanship. His father had refused, referring to Jaune as "a wonderful boy, but an indifferent student at best." For a long time, Jaune had been bitter about that assessment, but the trials that he had faced since leaving home for Beacon had shown him just how much… smaller, younger, and more foolish he had been.

Returning to his family home and showing his father just how far he had come… not only would it give him some emotional closure, but if the elder Arc gave his assent for training, Jaune stood to make an even greater jump in ability, perhaps even enough to give him a chance to put down Cinder Fall for good. Between his reasoning and the need for the team as a whole to take a breather, Ruby had given her assent for making a detour to Jaune's hometown.

The town of Sauvignon was one of the more prosperous settlements outside of the Kingdoms proper. Verdant countryside, rolling hills, and cultivated fields gave way to large, thick walls of limestone, with guardtowers staffed with watchful soldiers on patrol. As they drove through the vehicle gateway, the team could see bustling crowds at an outdoor bazaar, and elegant houses lining the broad, white cobbled streets. Jaune moved to sit between Qrow, who was driving, and Ms. Calavera in the passenger seat, as he began to direct the older Huntsman as to where to go. Soon enough, they pulled into a circular driveway before a large manor.

"For crying out loud!" Nora blurted. "Does everyone come from some big, rich, fancy-pants house but me and Ren?"

"I came from a farm," Oscar offered. "Does that help?"

Nora smiled at him. "Thanks, cute little boy Oz!"

Oscar just sighed helplessly before hopping out of the van.

Ruby and Qrow stood next to Jaune as he looked up at his childhood home. "So," Qrow began, "I've never met your old man before, but Tai knew him a while back. Said he could stand to pull the stick out, but when he did, he could beat Grimm to death with it."

"Qrow… " Ruby sighed as her uncle held his hands up in supplication.

"I know, I'll behave."

Jaune looked thoughtful. "My father is a good man, but… he sets and follows rules, and expects everyone to follow them as strictly as he does. General Ironwood kind of reminded me of him, a bit."

Qrow rolled his eyes. "Oh great. Another one."

"_Jaune!"_

Whatever response Ruby or Jaune might have made was lost as a plethora of Arcs emerged to greet their prodigal son, six young blonde girls, an older, willowy blonde woman, and a tall man, broad in shoulder with brown hair turning to grey. The parents held back for a moment as their daughters mobbed poor Jaune.

"You're so tall!"

"Are they feeding you right?"

"Look at that _armor!_"

"There sure are a lot of girls in your team. Which one are you crushing on?"

Jaune looked desperately for aid from Ruby, silently mouthing "help me!" Ruby answered with a wide grin and a helpless little shrug. The gaggle of blondes grabbing onto Jaune dissipated with reluctance as their father cleared his throat.

"My baby boy," Jaune's mother pulled him into a tender embrace, which he returned after a moment's hesitation.

"Hi, mom. I'm home."

He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. "I am glad to see that you are unharmed, Jaune. We have much to discuss." The elder Arc man's voice was deep, with a heavy accent. His face was well-weathered with age and worry, but his eyes were clear and his posture straight, still every inch the textbook Huntsman. Jaune's father turned to address his son's friends and teammates.

"My name is Guillaume Arc, Marshal of Sauvignon. This is my wife, Isabel, and our daughters, Rouge, Ciel, Violet, Soleil, Jade, and Noir." He gestured to each of the girls in turn. "I understand that you met my eldest, Saphron, in her home in Argus, with her wife and my grandson. Thank you for looking after my only son. Please, come in and make yourselves at home."

"What's a marshal?" Ruby asked, her hand raised as if she were back in Beacon.

"Merely a local title. It simply means that I am charged with overseeing the defence of this town and its people, and the elimination of any threats to it. There are other Huntsmen here, and I direct them, to the best of my ability."

The girl nodded. "So, is that why Jaune is so good at tactical leadership? You must have taught him a lot."

Guillaume looked surprised for a moment, but quickly hid it. "I see my son has made an impression. I would enjoy hearing about his experiences, young miss…?"

"Rose. Ruby Rose, leader of Team RWBY."

"Are you related to Summer Rose, by any chance?"

"She was my mother," Ruby said proudly.

"Was?"

"She died when I was very young."

Guillaume looked to the floor for a moment, his gaze distant in his melancholy reflection. "Another friend gone. The fate of all old Huntsmen, it seems. It would appear as though I have some stories for you as well, Miss Rose." With that, he offered her a smile and a wide gesture to his family estate.

"You are most welcome in this home."

[/]

"He did not!" Noir looked to Weiss with a scandalized expression on her face. The Arc family and their guests gathered around a large table, enjoying a good meal and conversation.

"I'm afraid so," the white-haired Atlesian confirmed. "He was singing right there in the doorway, guitar and all. Incidentally, whoever taught him how to sing needs to be dragged outside and shot, for the safety of us all."

The table enjoyed a hearty laugh at Jaune's expense, as he gave a good-natured, if slightly pained, smile in response. "Yeah, well, a certain _someone_ told me that all I needed was confidence," he said while giving an exaggerated nod of his head in the direction of his father.

Guillaume shook his head. "Of course, you would forget everything _else_ that I had to say about confidence. Without a foundation to support it, false confidence falls at the slightest scrutiny. You thrust an empty shell of a personality towards this girl, and it seems that she picked up on that immediately."

Although Jaune had been obnoxious in his early Beacon days, Weiss still felt the need to defend her friend, the young knight who had saved her life. "Well, Jaune has grown a great deal since then. He apparently faced a great deal of adversity on the road to Mistral, his efforts were crucial to our success in Atlas, and he even saved my life when he unlocked his Semblance."

"You were injured?" Isabel asked, concerned. She knew that the life of a Huntress was dangerous, but as she looked at her son's classmates-and her son as well-all she could see were such young children, practically infants, tossed into mortal danger.

"We were in an all-out fight to the death against a band of dangerous criminals. Their leader threw a Dust javelin through my side, impaling me from back to front. I would have died, but Jaune saved me. His Semblance can restore Aura, and even boost it beyond what someone would be capable of on their own… he supercharged my Aura, which healed my wounds. Without your son, I wouldn't be here today."

Silence fell through the dining room, Team RRAYNBOW, with Qrow, recalling the traumatic brawl at Haven Academy, and the others imagining the desperation of such a moment.

"Jaune hasn't always been the strongest in a straight fight," Ren began. "But none of us have worked as hard as he has to strengthen himself. More importantly than his sword arm is his heart. Jaune's Semblance makes us all stronger, but his character, who he is, makes us all better for his presence."

Guillaume nodded. "When we have a moment, you and I need to talk about these criminals, Jaune."

"So…" Ruby tried to change the subject. "How did you know my mother?"

The older man smiled ruefully. "I met Summer Rose when she passed through Sauvignon on a mission, along with her partner, a Huntsman named Taiyang Xiao Long."

"That's our father!" Ruby's smile was wide as she pulled Yang into her side, the blonde giving her host a small wave. Guillaume blinked.

"There is such a thing as a strong family resemblance, and then there is apparent generational duplication," he mused. "Anyways, they were searching for a particularly old and powerful Grimm that had been sighted in the area, and I was appointed to guide them…"

[/]

It was late in the night before Jaune had the opportunity to speak to his father alone. Father and son sat across from each other in the elder Arc's study, a dark mahogany desk between them.

Guillaume cleared his throat. "Jaune, while you are always welcome back home, I sense that this is not merely a social call."

"Was it the team of Hunters that gave it away, or the talk of bloodthirsty renegades?"

"Do not be snide, boy, it is unworthy of your accomplishments."

Jaune, surprised, sat up straighter at the compliment within the admonishment. "Okay. Our team is hunting the people behind the Fall of Beacon. It's a group of highly skilled, extremely dangerous nihilistic murderers, under the command of a megalomaniac with delusions of being a goddess. Their leader's name is Cinder Fall. She killed Headmaster Ozpin in single combat. She impaled Weiss, sentencing her to a slow, painful death to hurt me specifically. She wants to tear the eyes out of Ruby's head. And she… she killed my partner. Pyrrha. Pyrrha Nikos."

Slowly, Guillaume closed his eyes and sighed. "And it is your intention to fight this Cinder Fall?"

Jaune's expression was carefully neutral, but he couldn't hide the coldness in his eyes. "Fight her? No, I'm not going to fight her. I'm going to kill her. And for that, I need you to teach me the Arc Method."

His father looked horrified at Jaune's declaration, delivered so calmly, as if he were discussing plans to go to dinner. "Jaune… I must confess that I have not been entirely honest with you."

"What do you mean?"

"I misled you into believing that you lacked the aptitude to make for a proper Huntsman. The truth is… tell me, do you remember Saphron's bird, when you were a small boy?"

Jaune blinked at the abrupt question. "Uh… kind of? Didn't it die?"

"When you were very small, your eldest sister had a songbird that she kept in a cage. You let it out one day, in the hopes of seeing it fly. And it did, until it crashed into a window, dying upon the impact. When your mother and I found you, you had wept yourself insensate, cradling its body and begging it to come back to life and fly once more."

"I was… what, four years old at the time? You mean to tell me that you based my career path on something that happened when I was four years old?!"

"Do not be foolish, Jaune!" Guillaume snapped. "It was merely the first incident in a pattern of behavior. You care deeply for living things, and I am proud of that trait of yours. The creatures of Grimm are a scourge upon all that live, and if slaying them were all that was required of a Huntsman, I would have signed off on you joining their ranks with honor. But we are called upon to stop people as well-"

"So what?!" Jaune interrupted. He was standing now, gesticulating wildly in his anger. "You think, what, that I'm _too good_ for it? What, should we hand it off on orphans, like Ren and Nora, poor people so destitute that the rest of society can exploit them as hired muscle? Maybe make the Faunus do it on their own?"

Guillaume tore to his feet, an expression of anguish and frustration on his features._"I could not bear to see this world turn my son into a killer!_" A heavy silence fell upon the room. "The Arc Method is not for slaying Grimm. It is designed solely for the purpose of the killing of people. I, and others like me, have fought, bled, and killed to make a place where you and your peers could have the chance to avoid sharing our fate. Your grandfather was haunted by the memories of his youth, when he carried Crocea Mors into the Great War. While not to that same terrible extent as my father, I too have been called upon to take the lives of people… men, women, humans and Faunus. I… I had such dreams for you, Jaune, and for your sisters, dreams of a life that would not be dominated by war and butchery."

Jaune stared at the floor. When he met his father's gaze again, his voice was softer, but his gaze held steady." There were people like that in Vale, you know. People who tried to live decently. Good people, normal people, going about their lives in peace."

Jaune clenched his fist so hard that his knuckles turned white from the strain.

"They died screaming. Cinder Fall, and the people like her, are not going to simply allow those people their simple, clean lives, and thanks to the people I've met along the way, I've become someone who can potentially stop her. It isn't what you dreamed of, I know, but those dreams and the course that my life has taken are two wildly different things. Did you really think that I would give it up and return home to stay for good? I've seen and done things I never would have imagined, witnessed full-blown _miracles_, and I've become part of a team that can change the whole world. Protecting innocent people from harm is now as intrinsic to me as breathing. Protecting my friends, the people I've come to love as a second family, is more important to me than my own life. My Semblance, the reflection of my _soul_, is my life for theirs."

Though his friends had simply labeled his Semblance with the utilitarian name of "Aura Amplification," Jaune had known that giving his Aura, his greatest defense, to save and protect others, would one day be the death of him. So, in his heart, he knew it by another name.

My life for yours. The Knight's Code.

With a long, deep breath, Jaune unclenched his fist, and looked his father in the eye, resolute.

"So, Dad, the question that you need to ask yourself isn't how you can talk me out of this, because you can't. The question is, if I should die in the pursuit of my calling, did you, my father, do everything in your power to help me succeed?"

Guillaume sat heavily behind his desk, covering his eyes with his hand. Slowly, he placed that hand down on the desk and looked up at his son. "Very well. I will teach you, but only on one condition."

Jaune crossed his arms. "Oh?"

"Yes. Fight me, tomorrow afternoon, in the training yard. If you can break my Aura, I will teach you the fundamentals of the Arc Method, and provide materials for you to hone the technique on your own during your travels. If not, then you never ask it of me again."

"Deal." Jaune turned to leave his father's study.

"I want you to know that I _am_ proud of you," Guillaume suddenly said. "I am also so very afraid for you. Perhaps, should you have children of your own, you will understand what I have done a little more."

"Thanks, Dad."

"And one last thing." Guillaume leaned back in his chair. "Prepare yourself for a fight, boy. For the duration of the duel, I will _not_ be your father."

Jaune turned back to face his father. "Dad… do you remember that fight I had in middle school?"

Guillaume frowned. "This is not a-"

"That was the last time I fought someone who was on a the same level as me. Every time after that-_every single time_-I've picked a fight that was way out of my league. I've been a chew toy for Huntsmen and Huntresses-in-training at the most prestigious combat school in the world. I've been kicked around by a Nuckalevee. I've fought murderers, fanatics, and an assassin with guns coming out of his legs. One time, I tanked a bitch slap from a giant robot that was bigger than this house. All of that, and I'm still standing. So bring it, _Dad_. Just don't be surprised if I'm harder to put down than you might think."

With that, Jaune nodded once to his father and left him to his thoughts.

[/]

Walking down the hallway, Jaune was unsurprised to see Ruby waiting for him outside of the guest room. He offered her a small smile in greeting.

"So, did he agree to teach you? I heard shouting."

"Kind of."

"How does someone kind of agree?"

"I need to kick his butt first. Beat him down so bad that it breaks his Aura."

Ruby blinked in surprise. "What? Why? You've come so far, everyone said so!"

Jaune let out his frustrations with a long breath. "He's… He's trying to protect me, in his own, messed-up kind of way. He still doesn't get why it's… it's holding me back."

"Sometimes we need someone to hold us back to keep us from doing something stupid."

"Can't move forward if you're always being held back. Besides, doing something stupid is kind of our thing, Ruby."

She shook her head. "No, doing something stupid is kind of _your_ thing, Jaune."

He gave her a playful nudge with his shoulder. "I'm not the one who jumped down a giant cannon."

"No, but you were the one who got into a dance off with Mercury Black."

"A dance off that I won! You almost got eaten doing a staring contest with a Leviathan-class Grimm!"

"And I froze it with my peepers! That makes me the undisputed staring contest champ! Besides," Ruby got a sly grin as she moved in for the kill. "I'm not the one who bluffed being a Huntsman and got ejected into the Emerald Forest... without any Aura."

"Oh my gosh!" the muffled voice of Yang came from behind the door. "We get it, you're both really stupid, and awesome, and stupid awesome! Now either make out already or shut up so we can sleep, it's late!"

Ruby turned bright red. "What?! Yaaaaang, it's not like that!"

"They still have to do the thing where they both stare at each other for an uncomfortably long time," Weiss added.

"Hey! We don't do that!" protested Jaune.

The silence coming from the other side of the door was palpable. They could _feel_ the concentrated levels of "Yeah right" emanating from their friends.

"_Anyways,_" Ruby said loudly, indicating a change of subject with her usual levels of restraint and subtlety, "Do you think you can beat your dad?"

Jaune shrugged. "Can I? Probably not, no. The better question is, can _we?"_

"Well, yeah, of course we can." Ruby reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. "We can do anything, if we stick together!"

"Yeah," Jaune agreed, smiling down at the small girl who had managed the impossible over and over again. "Together." Ruby practically beamed up at him, her smile warm and comforting.

"Hey, they're doing the thing!" Yang called from the room. And just like that, the moment was gone, as Ruby puffed her cheeks in frustration, spun on her heel and stormed into her teammates' room to tell them off. Jaune could only shake his head ruefully as he went to his old room.

Tomorrow would be a trying day.

[/]

Jaune hopped over the short fence that lined the training yard behind the house. The other teenagers leaned against it, eager to see the duel. His father stood quietly in the center of the training yard, a detached, calm expression on his face. Guillaume had donned a full set of plate armor, silvery steel polished to a satin finish accented with Mistrali Bronze. A white cloak fell from his pauldrons. Whereas Jaune's armor accommodated a wandering Huntsman, who might have to cross great distances on foot or fight in unpredictable conditions, Guillaume's armor reflected his role as a stationary defender, being much heavier and more comprehensive in its coverage. From the sabatons on his feet to the bevor guarding his throat, the Arc patriarch's armor was a magnificent example of the armorer's craft, with numerous points of articulation and angled ridges designed to deflect incoming force.

If what Jaune suspected was true, than his infamously deep Aura reserves could well be a hereditary trait, and his father's spectacular armor could play to that strength, boosting a resilient warrior into a nigh-unstoppable war machine. That his father challenged him to break his Aura just confirmed that suspicion. Leaving off the sallet helmet was clearly meant to bait him into attacking the obvious weak point… or perhaps he simply didn't see Jaune as a threat to take seriously.

He didn't know precisely how, yet, but Jaune resolved to make his father regret that choice not to wear his helmet.

Guillaume rested against a broad-bladed bastard sword, clearly the inspiration for Jaune's modification to Crocea Mors. This weapon was simply known as Sever, a name as utilitarian and straightforward as its wielder. The tip of the blade rested in the dirt, and the pommel stood even with the elder knight's solar plexus. The crossguard held three dust crystal slots, static and more rudimentary, though more sturdy, than the elaborate and intricate powder mechanism that Weiss's rapier bore. The two Dust crystals in the quatrefoils were white, indicating wind, or possibly ice Dust. The crystal in the center, though, was both twice as large as the other two, and bore the unmistakable red hue of fire Dust.

"You know," Jaune called out as he came to a halt before his father. "It's not too late to save yourself a butt-kicking and just teach me what I need to know."

"Funnily enough, I was about to offer you another chance to end this foolishness and return home," retorted Guillaume. "Despite your improvements, you still have no chance to defeat me."

"Oh, I have a chance. It's an idiot's chance, but that's the only kind I've ever needed."

Jaune slowly drew Crocea Mors, a shining blade of hallowed antiquity, consecrated by the blood and suffering of generations of his forebears and given new life by the sacrifice of the greatest warrior of her generation. That sacrifice was reflected in the gleaming bronze that crossed the pristine white enameled steel of his shield, and that lined it to give a wickedly sharp edge. Jaune took his ready stance. With his left side forward, knees slightly bent, the pauldron and shield worked in tandem to protect him from his lower face to his boots, while his sword arm remained unencumbered, and chambered to launch a strike.

Guillaume hefted his blade, holding it diagonally, tip towards Jaune's throat, and the hilt close in to his body. A neutral guard, conventional yet versatile, well suited to respond to a great variety of different attack lines. The two stood stock still for a long moment, contemplating what approach the other was likely to take. As if by unspoken agreement, father and son broke the stillness in unison, meeting in a mutual charge.

Jaune feinted to his right and then surged towards the left, attempting to restrict Guillaume's movements by slamming forward with his shield. For his part, Guillaume struck along different elevations, slinging the edge of his sword horizontally towards the right side of Jaune's head. His son parried the attack with his sword, so the older Huntsman canted the blade over in a crosswise strike, attacking towards the unarmored legs with the short edge of the sword. This took Jaune by surprise, and he scrambled to intercept with his shield, forcing him to abandon the shield press. Guillaume celebrated the extension of his range by levering the pommel of his sword straight up and catching Jaune in the chin. He followed up with a sidelong cleave, but to his credit Jaune had managed to return his shield to guard and threw out some warding cuts as he gave ground.

Guillaume pressed the attack, Sever flowing smoothly, with an ease that spoke to a lifetime of practice. His strikes used both edges of the blade as well as its point, following unconventional, even deceptive, attack lines. Jaune skittered back once more before he dug in his heels and began to imbue sword strikes with his Aura, sending a razor wind towards his father. For his part, Guillaume merely activated wind Dust in his sword and backhanded Jaune's attacks away with an almost casual contempt. Jaune thought to return to his tactic of trying to shorten the range of Guillaume's strikes, but his father took him off-guard by stepping in to meet him, bringing the fight into infighting range.

Jaune deflected an overhead chop, only to be staggered when the older knight used that momentum to once again lever the pommel of his sword directly into his face. Guillaume gripped the blade of his sword with his offhand positioned halfway down the blade, using the shortened grip for greater leverage as he worked around Jaune's shield and delivered another punishing pommel strike, this time to the back of his son's neck. As Jaune reeled from the blow, desperately throwing up his shield to ward off the onslaught, Guillaume hooked the top of the shield with the crossguard of his sword, pulling it, and by extension, Jaune, into a pommel thrust. With his son's defense entirely crumbled, Guillaume swung the sword in a half-circle, blasting Jaune in the chest, the dense, heavy steel pommel striking like a hammer to his heart.

Jaune's feet flew out from under him, the young knight sent careening through the air by the Aura-enhanced power of his father's vicious technique. He hit the dirt and skidded a few more feet before coming to a stop, rolling to his back just in time to see the tip of his father's sword resting just under his chin.

For his part, Guillaume looked unimpressed. "As you saw fit to wield our family's ancestral blade like a caveman swinging a stone cudgel, I found it only appropriate to respond in kind." He peered at his son. "Is that really the form that that girl taught to you? Someone has done her a disservice. It has too many extravagant movements, wasted energy and momentum, most probably to entertain the poorly-educated with dramatic poses."

Jaune pushed himself onto his elbows. "It's my fault, not hers. She was amazing, the best of all of us. Odds are, if there's something wrong, it's something wrong with me."

"Perhaps. Maybe the natural talent you speak of was sufficient to overcome such flaws. Or perhaps, those flaws in her style are what cost her her life. The best techniques are passed on by the survivors, boy."

"Well, _Dad_," Jaune practically spat the word, "I wasn't so lucky as all that. I received the techniques from someone who actually cared enough to pass them to me."

Slowly, Guillaume nodded. "True enough. Is there anything else you wish to add before this farce comes to a close?"

Of all the reactions Guillaume could had anticipated-tears, another attempt to attack him, perhaps even a melancholy depression-he never expected Jaune to _smirk_ at him. "Yeah, Pops, just one word, four letters, and a world of pain."

"_Nora."_

[/]

His eyes widening, Guillaume spun to face a new threat.

Too late.

Without a tremendous cracking sound, Jaune's orange-haired teammate whipped her giant hammer into Guillaume's torso. This time, it was the elder Arc that went flying, hitting the ground and rolling to bleed off inertia before rising to his feet. Fury was evident in his expression as he pointed to his treacherous son, who was pushing himself up and retrieving his sword.

"You bring aid into a duel?!" His attempt to charge was thwarted by a gout of emerald green bullets. Lie Ren dropped to stand to the side of Guillaume, twin machine pistols leveled at the elder knight.

Jaune still had that smirk on his face. "The true Huntsman adapts, improvises, and overcomes, right?" he called, bringing up one of his father's quotes and throwing it in his face.

"So _now_ you sit fit to listen to what I have to say?" Guillaume's incredulity was complete.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't cheat." admitted Jaune. "But that's okay, because here's another goodie: the true Huntsman brings all his strengths to bear to achieve his objectives. And guess what I've learned about myself since I've been gone?"

Guillaume was forced to step back again as Ruby, perched on a wooden gazebo outside of the courtyard, took a potshot at his feet.

"_I'm a people person."_ Jaune dropped the smirk, now regarding his father with a look of absolute gravity.

He reformed his guard, shield forward, sword poised to strike, legs crouched and ready to move. "I don't think you understood me when I told you that I _will_ kill Cinder. If that means going one-on-one, in some duel, great. If that means being strong enough not to get in the way as we all jump the bitch, then that works too. If that means holding off her cronies so we can plant a bomb on her Bullhead, then that's what I'll do, but I will not _stop_ until she is _dead!_"

Everyone moved at once.

Guillaume surged towards Ren, who, in turn, fired more rounds from his twin machine pistols while strafing to his left. Jaune began to slowly stalk his way back towards the action, while Nora took a flying leap to interpose herself between the elder knight and her boyfriend.

Nora's hammer Magnhild, much like Nora herself, hit hard, but also suffered from a complete lack of subtlety. The girl's tremendous, Aura-powered strength enabled her to strike with thunderous force, but with all that weight concentrated in the head of the weapon, she could not redirect it quickly relative to Huntsmen-level combat, and she needed space and time to get it swinging.

With that in mind, Guillaume prioritized denying her those factors, on the grounds that one full hit from that girl, using that weapon, was more than enough, thank you kindly. As it was, he would be feeling that one hit in the morning, armor or no armor. He ignored the long-haired boy, who was so painfully obvious in his attempts to draw his attention just long enough for the girl to land a decisive hit. That boy was a born skirmisher, quick and hard to get a bead on, but once it happened, he would not be able to stand up to much punishment. Guillaume trusted his armor and his Aura to mitigate the stinging effects of those pistols, opting instead to focus on pressing the attack on Nora.

Nora found herself in the unusual position of having to give ground and fight defensively as it was all she could do to avoid getting cut to ribbons, the reinforced shaft of her hammer deflecting the knight's slices. She got the space she needed when Ruby fired off another shot, which Guillaume was obliged to swat away.

As he stepped back to redirect the force of the high-powered sniper bullet that he had intercepted, Guillaume could tell that something had changed for his primary opponent. Sometimes, people thought that his Semblance must be some kind of combat precognition, but his intuition was the hard-won result of decades of combat experience, as well as concentrated study in learning to read people.

Nora had a tell.

It was in the way that she shifted her stance ever-so-slightly, beginning to launch a full-power hit. It was in the way that her eyes lit up, a tell of Ren approaching that she probably didn't even know she had. If one were to ask Guillaume to explain in rational terms why he did what he did next, he would be hard-pressed to do so. His intuition knew before his conscious thoughts could articulate it, and his body responded to his intuition. Guillaume abruptly dropped to the ground, as if he had been a marionette whose strings had been severed.

Had their plan gone off as it had been intended, as had happened many, many times over their lifetime spent together as partners, Ren's flying kick would have struck Guillaume in the back and sent him staggering into Nora's hammer blow. However, their target had gone to ground, and neither Ren nor Nora could halt, or even slow, their momentum.

With a hideous crack, Nora sent Ren rocketing into the gazebo. It collapsed into a pile of splintered wood, burying Ren underneath. Ruby burst into rose petals as her perch disintegrated under her, and began to fly towards Guillaume.

"_Ren!" _Nora's horror was complete and she began to sprint to where her partner lay unconscious where he was buried.

Guillaume had to restrain a sigh as he stood up and saw the girl run towards her partner, all thought of combat lost under her need to see to his safety. It would have been so easy for a true opponent to simply slide his blade in between her ribs as she ran past him. Instead, he opted, once more, to flip his blade over and swing with the pommel. It would hurt, punish her for dropping her guard so completely, but she would live. It was to his complete surprise, then, that he found its trajectory blocked by the white steel of Crocea Mors' shield.

"Don't even think about it," barked Jaune.

"You do them no favor by shielding them from the consequences of their weaknesses. That girl wears her heart on her sleeve."

"And on her shirt!" Ruby hurled herself into the fray, her scythe unfolding as she swung a great overhead cleave towards Guillaume. He sidestepped, eyeing the weapon warily. Between her Semblance and the recoil of her weapon, Ruby's mobility was unprecedented. To a certain extent, she could _fly_, and that meant that Guillaume found himself deflecting scythe cuts and rifle bullets from wild angles. Despite the ingenuity of the weapon and the skill of its user, its properties still had some weaknesses to be exploited.

Theoretically, a scythe would be of similar property to a hammer, in that the vast majority of the weapon's weight would be concentrated at the end of a long haft. This was exacerbated by the fact that le petit rose was a tiny slip of a girl, whose technique required her to literally throw everything she had, including her entire body, into each and every one of her attacks. Guillaume was able to capitalize off of this, pulling the head of the scythe forwards or to the side after avoiding an attack, sending Ruby off balance. Unfortunately for him, this left him open to Jaune, who sent brutal shield rim bashes and pommel strikes into his father's back and ribs.

It reached the point where Guillaume simply _had_ to respond. A part of him was proud that Jaune and his friends actually forced him to use his Semblance, even if the boy _did_ need backup to do so. Guillaume's Semblance allowed him to see the interlinking webs of lines of causality, and highlighted particular conjunctions where even a minimum application of force would unravel the entire thing.

He called it Shatterpoint.

On the strategic level, he could tell what effect, say, the fall of a fortress could have on a war, empowering him to make prudent leadership decisions. On the tactical level, he could destroy a portion of that fortress wall with a tap, making him a force on the battlefield.

Oddly enough, as he fell into his Semblance, the conjunction that it showed him lay not in his son, but in the girl. Shoving Jaune to the side, he focused on the girl flying towards him.

The girl.

The scythe.

The haft.

_There._

With a pivot, Guillaume sent a backhanded slash through the haft of Crescent Rose. The scythe fell apart as if it had been made of balsa wood.

Ruby's silver eyes were wide and watery as she beheld the disjointed halves of her weapon. "W-Wha-?" She looked as though she were about to cry.

Guillaume found the urge to plant his palm into his face. These children would be easy prey for ruthless enemies who knew their weaknesses. He sent a quick apology towards the spirit of Summer Rose as he took a step forward and drove his armored shin up directly between Ruby's legs. The girl's boots actually left the ground from the force of the impact.

The parts of Crescent Rose fell from suddenly nerveless fingers as Ruby fell to her knees, hurt too badly to even scream. Guillaume stepped past her as she began to vomit helplessly into the dirt, flipping Sever in his hand as he took a casual stance against his son.

"Was that really necessary?" Jaune asked through gritted teeth as he squared off against his father once more.

"You said your enemy wishes to take her eyes. If your friend's sentimentality over a mere object can cause her to abandon all defense, then the enemy will most likely have them."

The elder knight stepped aside as Weiss and Blake picked up the trembling Ruby between them, carrying her away from the training yard. "If nothing else," Guillaume continued. "They should understand what it is to engage in combat. It is not a game, like that ridiculous Vytal Festival. Weapons are not toys, boy. They are tools for killing, and like any tool, they are to be used and discarded without undue concern."

"Are you saying that you wouldn't be upset if Crocea Mors were to be broken?"

"If it did its job and kept my son safe in the process, I would see it destroyed without blinking. The Arc Family can replace a sword and shield. It can not replace a son."

"You know, I kind of get it," Yang strode smoothly into the conversation, cracking her remaining natural knuckles with her bionic hand. "I'm still going to have to kick your ass for punting my baby sister in the lady parts, though. I'm sure you understand."

"Quite." Guillaume inclined his head towards her. "Shall we, then?"

Yang dashed towards the elder knight, redirecting her momentum at the last second with a burst of shotgun fire and executing a beautiful acrobatic flip. Landing behind Guillaume, she began to launch a devastating right, only to have to check her momentum and scramble out of the way as Guillaume unexpectedly stabbed behind himself. He turned to face her, flinching away from the punches and shotgun blasts going off near his head.

Jaune watched the fight, studying the both of them carefully. Blake practically materialized at his side, silent and subtle. The cat Faunus held out a small metallic orb to him. "Here. Did Ren show you how to use it?"

He nodded, taking the orb and pocketing it in his left gauntlet. "How are the others?"

"Ruby's back up, more angry and embarrassed than hurt. Nora dug Ren out, he's concussed." She looked at him. "Want me to send in Weiss?"

Jaune's eyes narrowed, studying the fight between Yang and his father. Yang was the best straight-up fighter that they had, and she had managed to actually land a couple of solid hits on Guillaume. For his part, the elder knight looked to finally be enjoying himself, carefully observing her methods of defense and egress as she had to spend more time in the defensive.

Jaune shook his head. "No. Send in Oscar," he said to Blake. "I need to test the enemy's Aura, and if Yang gets angry, she might prematurely break it. It'd be just like him to say that I, specifically, need to break it or the deal is off."

He turned to see her regarding him with an oddly flat look, the tips of her cat ears slightly drooping. "For the record, your family missed its true calling," she told him.

"Oh? So what should we have been?"

"Lawyers." She laughed at the wince on his face before she turned and began to leave the training yard.

"Words hurt, Blake," Jaune called after her. "That's hurtful."

[/]

Yang fought to keep herself from grinning like a loon and swearing like a sailor all at the same time. The old timer was _good._ She had trained extensively to fight swordsmen… well, _one_ swordsman in particular, but Arc and Taurus could not have been more different from each other. Guillaume lacked the raw, furious speed of the younger Faunus, but more than made up for it by virtue of his deceptively fluid technique and extensive experience. Adam had been taut with an uncontrollable impulse to maim and kill, violently ripping performance out of his body, screaming and grunting with effort and outrage. In contrast, Arc was poised and relaxed, his defenses never truly fast, but always just fast enough to let his armor deflect a punch here, or to let a kick slide off the flat of his blade there.

And when he counterattacked!

Yang had always been a hands-on kind of fighter, but her uncle Qrow, whose own weapon was a greatsword most of the time, _had_ ensured that she had at least a comfortable familiarity with the sword. This guy fought entirely differently to her uncle. No mecha-shifting, no integrated firearm, not even a secondary blade mode, but he somehow turned a bog-standard bastard sword, with just a bit of Dust for flavor, into a combination weapon all its own. The blade practically _slithered_ around her parries and blocks, both edges and the point biting at her. The damn crossguard was both a hooking implement and a striking surface, while the scent-stopper pommel hit like a light mace, quick but solid and dense. Every single inch of the sword had a purpose, with nothing extraneous or even decorative to it.

For the first time in a long time, Yang found herself enjoying the fight for the hell of it. Even when Guillaume sidestepped and smacked her with the flat of the blade, swatting her away as if she were a baseball, the young fighter rose again with a fierce grin on her face.

"Not bad, gramps. I usually don't go for whomping on the elderly, but I can make an exception in your case."

Guillaume favored her with a small grin as he sent his sword through a brief flourish. "I am merely surprised to see that one of my son's friends is actually almost competent. Underneath all of that ridiculous hair is the closest thing to a fighter that I have seen today." He made a show of peering at her. "You are not one of mine, are you? Forgive me, with so many blonde girls running about, I confess that I may have lost track."

"Nah. Unlike poor Jauney, _my_ father is a good teacher." Yang slammed her fists together before resuming her combat stance.

"Alas, your technique lags behind your impertinence. Such tragedy."

Yang prepared to charge at him again, when Jaune called out to her. "Yang, out."

She halted in her tracks, her stance wavering. "Wait, what? Why?"

"Because if _you_ kick his ass, he'll say it's not me who broke his Aura."

She sighed as Guillaume gave a sheepish _yeah, you caught me_ kind of shrug. "Ugh, fine, but next time, I'm totally gonna go all out, Arc."

"Fair enough," father and son said in unison. Yang just rolled her eyes as she turned to leave the courtyard, holding out her robotic arm to high-five Oscar as they passed.

[/]

Guillaume looked incredulously at the small boy in the emerald green jacket, even more so when he held up some weapon to reveal… a spring loaded cane?

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to hit you with this stick now, Master Arc," said Oscar. "I'm not sure when I'll stop."

Wordlessly, Guillaume looked to his son for an explanation. "What can I say?" Jaune began, his arms wide. "Talented young kid with a dream for something more than a mundane life…. Couldn't help but sympathize."

"So Jaune, I take it you have a plan?" Oscar took a stance with his cane.

Jaune appeared to think it over. "I could always pick you up and hit him with you."

"Any plans that don't involve manhandling me, for once?"

"Sheesh, you shove a kid one time… okay then, Aegis to Taphappy."

For the first time, Oscar's demeanor reflected how young he really was. "Oh, come on, we are _not_ calling it that!" His exasperation was obvious as he voiced his displeasure.

Jaune's face lit up in malicious glee. "The fact that you know which _it_ I'm referring to means that it's totally called Taphappy."

"You can't-" Oscar's complaints were interrupted when Guillaume rushed him mid-sentence, the older knight understanding that a conversation was a perfect opportunity to attack. He found himself stopped cold as Jaune interposed himself, catching the blade on his shield. Jaune had known that his father couldn't resist the opportunity, Guillaume realized. That entire comedy bit had been a ruse to get him to react in a predictable fashion.

One day, it would sink in just how clever his son truly was.

Jaune focused on total defense, not even attempting to counter his father's attacks. Oscar, standing behind Jaune, used the long reach of his cane to lash out in his stead, exploiting the openings that Jaune's defense created, the cane striking from under his arm, off from the side, and even once from over Jaune's head. When a particularly strong thrust caught Guillaume's arm just above the elbow and blew his guard wide open, Jaune sidestepped to let Oscar do his thing. The ex farmhand unleashed a blistering salvo of powerful jabs, his arm a blur as he peppered Guillaume with hits, finishing the sequence by smashing his leg, dropping Guillaume to one knee. Oscar vaulted backwards, acrobatically disengaging from the duel.

"Thanks, Oscar." Jaune said to him. "Taphappy really helped me gauge his Aura and exhaustion."

"For crying out loud, we're not calling it that!" Oscar just shook his head and went to rejoin the other teens on the sidelines.

[/]

Guillaume remained on his knee for a long moment. He had no idea what the deal with that cane was, but it was no ordinary walking stick he'd just been battered by, nor was that an ordinary teenage boy that had wielded it, aspiring Huntsman or no. That had _hurt._ Through his _armor_. Warily, he rose to his feet, holding his blade out in a hanging guard to ward off any more... _surprises_ that his son might throw at him.

"Well, boy, I can certainly say that some of your friends have impressed me. How is it that they listen to one such as you so readily in a fight?"

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Wow, harsh." He gave a little flip of Crocea Mors. "I guess all I can say is that I have ideas, and when they're good, they listen. Ruby is more of our overall leader anyway; she has the big ideas, and I just help her work out how we're gonna pull them off. But I at least have to ask; I haven't surprised you yet? Not even a little?"

With that, he sheathed his sword into his shield, collapsing it into its scabbard form. He gave his father a truly shit-eating grin as the mechanism in the weapon sent the sharpened bronze edges of the shield up and out, effectively turning the entire piece into a shorter, heavier version of Guillaume's own sword. Jaune adopted a shaky, if passable, imitation of his father's stance.

"How about now?"

Guillaume stared at his son for a long moment, before finally throwing his head back in a true, hearty laugh. He saluted Jaune with his blade. "No matter how this duel turned out, you were watching enough to pick up the basics," he said wonderingly. "I suppose I have never given you enough credit for your… tactical acumen."

"Tactical Acumen' in this case having the meaning of 'You sneaky little bastard,'" Jaune replied as he returned his father's salute. "Let's finish this."

"Very well."

Guillaume set himself to defend against Jaune's initial attack, only for his son to rocket into the air after taking two steps forward. Following his trajectory upwards, Guillaume saw his son press his feet onto a strange white glyph that manifested in the air. He had just enough time to recognize the Schnee snowflake emblem on it before it sent Jaune flying at speed towards his father.

The metal of their blades groaned under the strain as the two Arc swordsmen clashed. Guillaume gave ground as Jaune pressed the assault, imitating his father's angled strikes to the best of his ability. Weiss had once told Jaune that fencing was akin to chess played at a hundred miles an hour, and for the first time, Jaune truly understood what she had meant. Father and son traded parries and cuts. Jaune threw a thrust towards Guillaume's torso, only for Guillaume to sidestep and strike to his wrists with the short edge, only for Jaune to pull his sword back enough to use the force of the parry to lever the blade around to throw a crooked cut towards Guillaume's head, only for Guillaume to catch it in the crossguard and threaten Jaune with the point.

That play occurred in just over two seconds. The two knights carried on in this fashion for almost a minute straight before Guillaume was finally able to send Crocea Mors flying out of Jaune's grasp, the blade landing a dozen feet to Jaune's right. Guillaume held his blade up to Jaune. "Now, are you-"

His attempt to convince Jaune to surrender was interrupted by dint of the young man throwing a left hook towards his old man's head. Guillaume caught it on an upraised arm, but before he could reiterate his demand, he caught the barest hint of something metallic in his son's grip. The orb that Blake gave him whirred once before blasting a pressurized stream of pepper spray directly into Guillaume's unprotected eyes.

It is difficult to overstate the degree to which Huntsmen, and those who fight on a level comparable to them, rely upon their Auras. It would go without saying that, without the protective and restorative properties of the spiritual force, neither Guillaume nor any of the members of Team RRAYNBOW would have survived as long as they had. But with that being said, there were some things that Aura just couldn't shrug off. One of those things happened to be the debilitating effects of a potent pepper spray forced into someone's eyes.

Guillaume had no hope of maintaining his defense as his eyes burned and pain spiked into his skull. Jaune wasted no time charging his father and tackling him to the ground, Sever falling from the older man's grasp to clatter in the dirt. Jaune went into the full mount position that Yang had taught him, and began to send vicious elbow smashes into Guillaume's bare face.

"_Je suis un chevalier!"_

Jaune's pronouncement was punctuated with a thunderous smash.

"_Je suis_ _un chasseur!"_

Guillaume offered no defense against the onslaught.

"_Je suis ton fils!"_

Guillaume's Aura finally, mercifully, broke as he lost consciousness. Jaune rolled off of his father, and shakily stood up, taking deep gasping gulps of air as he looked at his unconscious progenitor. He had done it. He had needed his friends, and he had cheated outrageously, but he was still standing, and his father was not. For a Huntsman, that was victory enough.

[/]

**Some time later**

The situation was bad. Shade Academy and its students were holding against the onslaught of Grimm, but only just. The battle was, in truth, a massive diversion for the benefit of Salem's elite operatives to attempt to make off with the Relic hidden in the Academy. Team RRAYNBOW had met them in a fight, but Jaune had spotted a large contingent, at least a hundred in number, approaching from a nearby cliff path. They didn't appear to be soldiers, at least in the traditional sense, but one held aloft a banner, black with a white and red Beowulf skull.

What convinced Jaune and Ruby to act was the fact that Tyrian Callows stood at their back. None of them had explosives powerful enough to break the massive stone bridge that connected Shade to the path, so Ruby and Jaune broke away to try and drive them back.

"Okay, warning shot first," Ruby said as she aimed with her reforged Crescent Rose. She fired a shot over the heads of the force, the round cracking through the rock. The people marching towards the bridge paid no heed, marching on as if nothing had happened. Ruby then took aim at the standard bearer, shooting at the knee. To her horror, the man's limb exploded in a gout of blood, sending sharpened shards of bone flying.

The people marching towards the bridge paid it no heed, marching on as if nothing had happened. Even the man Ruby had shot staggered on, without pause or complaint.

"What?!" Ruby's silver eyes were wide with horror. "Why didn't his Aura stop it?!"

Jaune caught on quickly. It was clever, in a sick and twisted kind of way. Send in Aura-less fanatics to attack the Huntsmen, especially Ruby. They would be forced to kill, and in large numbers, and many of their number were not prepared for that kind of trauma. Even those who had killed before would balk at the number that they would have to put down, bringing in even more Grimm, who would target those who were most vulnerable. And finally, if it caught Ruby in the psychological trap, the trauma might keep her from bringing her eyes into play. The effect would be temporary, but in a pitched battle like this, "temporary" might be enough to cause a disaster.

Jaune knew at once what he had to do.

"Ruby," he said, his voice strangely calm. "I need you to go back and help Weiss."

"What? But what are you going to do?"

Jaune didn't answer.

"Jaune?"

He turned to her. "Go back to Weiss," he said gently. "You can't get caught in this. It's a trap for you specifically."

"But-"

Jaune kissed her. It was probably a bad idea, and if he lived, he'd catch all kinds of hell for it, but in that moment, Jaune just couldn't bring himself to give a damn.

"Go," he told her as they broke apart. He smiled at her expression, her mouth gaping open like an adorable fish. "I'll take care of this. Arc's promise."

Ruby closed her mouth with an audible pop. "You'd better come out of this alive, or… or else!"

"Yes, ma'am."

He turned away as Ruby dashed back to her partner. It occurred to Jaune that he had just done to Ruby what Pyrrha had done to him, all the way back at Beacon. The irony was not lost on him. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Jaune made his way to the bridge. He took pride in his tactical acumen, but any being with any sense of intelligence would have recognized that his only chance was to use the bridge as a chokepoint. Fighting the whole contingent, Aura or not, would be problematic. But two at a time was a much more feasible feat.

Jaune drew Crocea Mors, a shining blade of hallowed antiquity. Warily he eyed the approaching force as the first of its members reached the bridge. "My name is Jaune Arc," he called. "Turn back now, and live."

The people were as unheeding of his words as they had been of Ruby's bullets. "Bring it on, then," Jaune called again, this time in challenge. "One at a time or all in a rush, I don't give a damn."

"None shall pass."

He held up his sword in a brief salute before the first man reached him. The attacker rushed him, swinging wildly with some sort of recurved machete and screaming prayers to Salem. Jaune set the blade aside with his shield and punched Crocea Mors under the man's sternum. The blade burst from the man's back before Jaune punched him off of his sword with his shield. In the same movement, Jaune crouched and whipped the tip of the sword through a second man's torso, eviscerating him with a single cut.

In the rational part of his mind, Jaune wondered at how fragile a human or Faunus could be when not protected by Aura. As he fought, he recalled one of his father's lessons, practically hearing his voice.

_What did you think swords are for?_

Jaune put his horror and revulsion aside. This was a chore, like any other, and the Arc Method was simple, workmanlike, and lethally effective. He could not falter. His team needed him to hold. His friends needed him to hold. Ruby needed him to hold.

_My life for yours. My heart for yours. My soul for yours._

Jaune Arc built a rampart of the dead.

[/]

In retrospect, Jaune was simply the best suited for the particular task. Ren and Blake needed space and shadow to do their best work. Yang and Nora's styles would have made tired from the never-ending press of enemies. Ruby and Weiss lacked the physical resilience and solid defenses that kept Jaune unharmed through the battle.

But a holding action? That, Jaune could do.

He hadn't a clue how long he had been fighting, or how many he had killed, but Jaune knew that the answers to both questions would be shocking. It was clear that these fanatics were driven by some sort of religious fervor that sent them hurtling towards Jaune, irrespective of the danger. They literally climbed over the bodies of their dead to attack him, and died with bloody smiles on their faces. The only time Jaune had given ground had been when the pile of the dead before him grew so tall that the other attackers were using the bodies as high ground to attack him from above.

And through it all, Jaune hadn't actually called upon his Aura. He didn't need the strength that could imbue his cuts with a razor wind, he just needed enough to send the edge deep enough to sever an artery. He didn't need to heave the blade in that manner that had his father calling it akin to "a caveman swinging a stone cudgel," when he understood how to let the blade do most of the work. His sword and shield worked in tandem, keeping him safe while dropping his enemies at his feet.

The man before him swung a meat cleaver with wild frenzy, to which Jaune merely took a half-step back and stabbed the man under the armpit. Jaune pushed the dying man back with his shield, while simultaneously parrying another attack with his sword, the tip back and down by his head. From that position, the young knight was chambered to retaliate, sending the razor edge of the sword through the attacker's skull. He fought down a wince at the now-familiar grating rasp of steel on bone as the blade reemerged from the enemy's face.

He stepped back from the falling bodies of his latest two opponents and returned to guard. A moment passed, and another, while Jaune prepared himself for whatever trick the enemy had next. As the sun began to set in the desert, a shadow jumped onto the largest pile of cadavers. From the janky, crouching movements, the metallic scorpion tail, and, most tellingly, the mad cackle emanating from the man, the conclusion was inescapable.

Tyrian Callows had taken the field.

The first, and only, time their paths had crossed, Jaune and the rest of Team RNJR had been completely overwhelmed by the insane scorpion Faunus. Tyrian had fought Qrow, a skilled professional Huntsman, to a standstill, and damn near killed him. And now Jaune had to fight him.

Alone.

_Well. Shit._

"Hey now… I remember you!"

Jaune kept quiet, not trusting his voice to keep from quavering.

"Where is the silver-eyed girl?"

He kept his silence. A strange calm came over him as he stared impassively at the assassin. His shoulders dropped a little as the tension left his body. Jaune was still terribly afraid, but somehow, it didn't matter any longer. He would win or he would die. No more anxieties. No more fears. There was only the certainty that the only way Tyrian would get to Ruby would be to literally step over his dead body to do so.

Jaune pointed his sword at Tyrian. "She is beyond you now. Stand down or die." His voice was calm, clear and steady.

"Heh. Heh-heh-heh-heh. HA-HA-HA-HA! HAAAA!" Tyrian's tongue lolled about as he swung his head around, drool running down his face. There was no tell that Jaune could discern as Tyrian rushed him, only undifferentiated madness.

Jaune immediately assumed a total defensive stance as Tyrian's wrist blades clanged against his shield. He stepped carefully over his tripping kicks, and used the edge of his shield to scrape his prehensile tail off of his arm when Tyrian tried to pry his sword from his grasp. Had he been aware of it, Jaune would have been stunned as he carried on through the single best fight of his life, but there was no room for shock or pride or fear. There was only the fight.

The young knight punched out with the crossguard of his sword, pulling back into a vicious backhanded clout that sent the scorpion Faunus reeling. As if by premonition, Jaune braced his shield as Tyrian's wrist guns opened fire on him. Dispassionately, Jaune examined the situation. He had been doing well, better than he could have ever expected. Without his father's training, he surely would have died. But while he wasn't hurt, he wasn't hurting Tyrian either, and with how long he had been fighting, fatigue would set in sooner rather than later.

There was no telling when, or if, he would get backup. But Jaune had one advantage; he knew that _Tyrian_ knew how Huntsmen typically fought, and the Arc Method was anything but conventional to Huntsmen. A Huntsman would have used Aura, either to power their attacks, boost their defense, or heal their wounds. With his Semblance, Jaune could conceivably land a single, uncontested attack when Tyrian thought his Aura was drained.

_All warfare is based on deception._

With another of his father's adages in mind, Jaune resolved to roll the dice.

[/]

He resumed his guard, watching Tyrian warily. For the first time, Jaune went on the offensive, slashing and hacking at the assassin. The attacks weren't tremendously successful, but they didn't have to be. They were intended to lure Tyrian into a counterattack, and to that end, they served their purpose well enough. Jaune hissed as one of Tyrian's blades cut into his face, opening a diagonal cut from his left eyebrow across the bridge of his nose. He made a show of staggering back as blood poured from the wound. It was all he could do to tamp down on his training and refrain from activating his Aura to heal the painful cut.

Tyrian giggled before slowly licking the blood, his blood, off of the blade. "Uh-oh! It looks like Pumpkin Pete has hopped his last! No more hippity, no more…" Tyrian's smile widened, his eyes taking a predatory gleam as he raised his tail for the killing blow.

"... Hoppity."

The tail lashed out, gleaming metal stinger already dripping who-knows-what from the bionic reservoir. At the very last possible moment, Jaune activated his Semblance on himself, instantly closing the cut on his face and turning his already formidable defense in an impassable bulwark.

Tyrian's stinger broke like a cheap spoon.

Before the scorpion could begin to react, Jaune snatched the remaining tail in his left hand, and with Aura-enhanced might, he yanked Tyrian off his feet and towards him. In that moment of shock, it was the easiest thing in the world for Jaune to put the point of his sword at the hollow of Tyrian's throat and _push._ Crocea Mors stabbed through Tyrian's throat and erupted from the back of his neck.

Tyrian's strength left him when Jaune retracted the blade, and he fell to his knees. Jaune watched as Tyrian's mouth worked, trying to say something. Whatever it might have been-a plea, a taunt, one last praise to Salem, or, most likely, more peals of insane laughter-it was lost. All that came from Tyrian was a hideous wheezing rasp as the air escaped from the tear in his throat.

For his part, Jaune was still wary of Tyrian, even after he dealt a mortal wound to him. Keeping his grip on the scorpion's tail, the knight sent a backhanded cut through his neck, cleanly severing his head. Only after Tyrian's body had fallen, and he had thrown the head from the side of the bridge, did Jaune relax.

The scene around him was a horror. Bodies were strewn across the bridge, the stone stained red with blood, some of it his own. After checking to make sure there was no one else left to fight, Jaune shook the blood from his sword and returned it to its sheath. He held a hand to his radio earpiece, wincing at how sticky with blood his gauntlets were.

"Jaune Arc, reporting," he said. Why was his voice so shaky? "The West bridge is secure. Who is out there?"

"Cinder made a run for it. Again." Qrow's rough voice also wavered a bit. "No one seriously hurt, but things got rough. You need some help, kid?"

"Tyrian Callows is dead."

There was a pause. "You sure about that?"

"I cut his head off and threw it into the canyon. If he isn't dead, I'm going home like Dad wanted."

"Holy hell, kid. You okay?"

"Yep." Jaune was surprised to find himself sitting on the ground in front of the bridge, as all of the terror, revulsion, fatigue and pain hit him at once. "Check that. Can use some help getting home."

"Yeah, sure thing, kid."

Jaune gave one last look at the bridge, that scene of absolute slaughter.

"Don't let Ruby see."

[/]

Yang thought she had seen quite a lot for someone her age, even other Huntresses. But she had never seen anything like what she found waiting for her at that bridge. There was a large stack of bodies, a literal pile of dead people in the center, with more strewn haphazardly across its length. Discarded weapons, machetes, short swords, cleavers, spears, and what appeared to be a large meat hook, all lay where their owners had dropped them. She winced as she spotted the occasional severed limb. True to Jaune's report, most of Tyrian Callows lay dead near the entrance of the bridge, his head nowhere to be found. She heard her uncle transform back into his human form and let out a low whistle as he surveilled the devastation.

Sitting on the ground ahead of them, Jaune Arc looked an absolute mess. He was covered in blood, and given the new scar on his face, some of it was his own.

Yang understood immediately why he hadn't wanted Ruby to see this. It was necessary. His actions had saved Shade Academy. But it was still… _horrible._

"Jaune?" She called out, cautiously. To the best of her knowledge, he had never killed before, and now he had been made to do… _this._

He looked up at them, eyes wide, pupils dilated. "Yang?" He began to shake and tremble uncontrollably as the adrenaline left his system. She rushed to him, holding him tight, bloodstains be damned.

"Hang on there, Vomit Boy. We're here. You're safe now."

"Is Ruby safe?"

"Yeah, she's safe. Mad as hell, though. At least you're coming back to her. A gentleman doesn't just kiss a girl and leave her, right?"

Jaune smiled and leaned back, his gaze unfocused. "Don't tell Yang I kissed her sister, okay? She will _kick_ my ass…"

Yang glanced at her uncle, who was preparing something from a Huntsman medical kit and gestured at her to keep him talking.

"... I think you'd be surprised. Maybe she's okay with it."

"It was a trap," murmured Jaune. "Not just physical, but emotional too. Mess up the silver girl from the inside." Jaune's voice took a proud tone. "I saw through it. Didn't let 'em do it. Ruby's safe. She's _safe._"

He fell silent as Yang took a rag and wiped the blood from his face. By the time she finished, Jaune had fallen asleep, bloody armored chest rising and falling gently. She stepped back as Qrow stuck a needle into his neck and injected some kind of substance.

"This'll keep the kid's adrenaline from killing him while he's out. You good to carry him back inside?"

Yang nodded. "What… what are we going to do about _that?_" She pointed at the bridge before picking Jaune up and carrying him across her shoulders.

"Not much we can do, Firecracker, short of keeping Ruby from seeing it. I think Shortstack's probably gonna be too busy visiting this kid in the infirmary tomorrow. We'll see about getting a cleanup crew out here." He paused as he turned and looked at the bridge again. "It's a hell of a thing he did here."

"You and I have killed before. Just not on this scale. You think he's gonna be okay?"

Qrow shrugged as they began walking towards Shade. "Dunno. My guess is, he'll be focusing pretty hard on keeping Ruby okay. You kids gotta keep a close eye on him though, don't let him bury it."

They walked together in silence for a moment, before Yang broke it. "She must mean an awful lot to him for him to go and subject himself to that, alone."

"Yeah, I guess she does." Qrow sighed. "You damn kids. One moment, you're all so young, and the next time you turn around, you're saving the day, falling in love… I swear, the first time one of you girls has a kid, I'm getting drunk for a week straight, sobriety or no sobriety."

"Is it so bad?"

Qrow considered for a moment. "No. At least you're still here."

[/]

Jaune awoke in an infirmary, and the familiar sound of beeping machinery.

"Ruby?"

He sat up slowly, blinking weary eyes as he looked around.

"Jaune."

To his left, Ruby was sitting in a chair next to his bed. She reached out and took his hand.

"I'm okay, Jaune. We're all okay, and we're waiting here for you."

He took a deep breath and lay back down. Tears began to well in his eyes as he was just so unspeakably relieved to hear that his friends were okay. Ruby held his head to her chest as he began to cry, weeping from relief, from terror, from the grief of what he'd had to do.

"It's okay, Jaune. It's okay." She stroked his hair to sooth him, dimly remembering her mother having done so once. Jaune had been her first true friend, and he had stayed at her side through all of the harrowing trials since Beacon, and now this. Try as she might, Ruby couldn't imagine what she would do if she lost him. The very idea stole her breath away worse than a kick to the gut might.

In time, he would get up and find that she had cleaned his armor, weapon, and even his hoodie, claiming that she wasn't too good to get blood on her hands. She would let in the rest of their friends, to celebrate in their continued survival. Jaune would claim to be "cool facial scar pals" with Weiss, and leverage his injury to get her to high-five him. Ruby would face unspeakable teasing from her friends as she red-facedly admitted that she wasn't exactly displeased with the idea of more kisses with her knight. Jaune would write a letter to his father, thanking him for his training and explaining that, while he still didn't agree with the decision Guillaume had made not to train him from youth, he could understand both it and him better now.

Their quest would continue, with all of the danger, adventure, hardship and triumph that that entailed. But there would also be growth, camaraderie, and even romance as well. It was the Hunter's life, and none of them could imagine living any other.

**[/]**

**Story Endnotes:**

**So, that was my first attempt at writing action. Let me know what you thought of it! This is also a friendly reminder that weapons, awesome though they may be, are not toys. One thing I really like about the fallout from Volume 3 is that it drives home that these implements can be used to **_**hurt**_** people. Pyrrha is dead, and Yang's traumatic amputation had real weight to it.**

**I researched a lot of sword fighting resources for this story, including tutorials from Roland Warzecha, the Academy of Historical Fencing, and Blood and Iron Historical European Martial Arts. Their use of the double-edged sword is entirely different from anything I've ever seen in fiction. I think that, with the right training, conditioning, equipment, and positioning, one sturdy fighter really could win over a hundred, if it's in limited numbers at a time. Also, some of the injuries left on bones and skulls in museums are gruesome, most notably one poor bastard with a perfectly clean sword slice through the skull.**

**Guillaume Arc le Marchel is based off of Sir William the Marshal, First Earl of Pembroke, who is widely considered to be one of, if not the, greatest knights to ever live. He kicked Richard the Lionheart's ass and killed his horse in front of him, which is knight-speak for "don't fuck with me, your majesty." The strength of his word was so trusted that the rebelling lords of northern England took his word over that of King John when signing the Magna Carta, and an Arc never goes back on his word.**

**Jaune's declarations in French translate to "I am a knight," "I am a hunter," and "I am your son." **

**There are also a lot, and I mean a **_**lot, **_**of pop culture allusions in this fic, especially Guillaume's Semblance and Jaune's challenge on the bridge. See if you can find them all!**

**Well, I'm off to get back to writing "Falling Snow." Thank you for reading!**

**-Mahina **


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